A Life No Longer As If Dead
by Heartless Shinra Alchemist
Summary: In this one hume child, she had found her rebirth, her awakening from the facade the viera called life. It now seemed as if the viera lived as if dead, and she knew that the ties of Fate were closing in.


"Are you really a viera?"

Fran had heard a lot of things from the humes in the last thirty-odd years she had spent with them, but she had never been asked _that._ Drawing from her inner strength, she smiled falsely at the young child who looked up at her. He looked up at her, his brown eyes wide, not so much with innocence but as if he were trying to root out some sort of conspiracy. Her smile softened a bit.

"Yes, sir, indeed I am," she replied in a lukewarm voice, turning to escort the boy and his father to their cabin. It may have been a mistake to become an airship stewardess as her first job in the hume world, but it paid quite a large sum of money. Behind her, she heard the boy turn to speak with his father.

"I don't believe it, Father! I thought for sure they had glued ears on her to increase profits." His young voice had the traces of adult intelligence, but he had a child's indignant inflection. An Archadian accent, too. The boy's father chuckled.

"Ffamran, I don't believe that the East Ivalice Trading Company would do such a thing. All my dealings with them have been pleasant, and they seem to be nice people. You need to be more trusting, my son." There was the sound of hair being ruffled and the child's grunt of half affection, half frustration. Fran smiled, her thoughts on her sister, Mjrn. This child was much like her…

"Umm…miss?" The boy, (Ffamran, his name was?), was pulling at her sleeve again. She turned, tilting her head so that she could get a better look at him. From his excellent form of speech to his well-made clothes, it was obvious this boy was of the Archadian Gentry. Yet there was a harshness to him, a shrewd and razor intellect that seemed as if it were always poised, ready to strike. Normally, Gentry were pampered, arrogant people who thought themselves much greater than they were. Fran decided that she liked this hume-child.

"Yes, sir?" she inquired, her voice kind behind her thick accent. Unexpectedly, the child blushed.

"Please, don't call me sir. My name's Ffamran."

"Lord Ffamran Bunansa!" The boy's father called from behind. Ffamran's eyes narrowed.

"Call me Balthier," he said in a quieter voice, one that his father couldn't hear. "It's the name my friends and I came up with." Fran nodded, carefully patting the child's hand.

"I am Fran." Ffamran smiled, his eyes lighting up, for the first time, looking like a normal child.

"Well, nice to meet you, Fran!" he took her hand and shook it as they walked. The boy's father could be heard sighing, something that the boy seemed to enjoy.

Maybe he was not so much like Mjrn.

Fran's eyes caught the suite father and son shared, the name 'Bunansa' embossed on a copper card on the door. She directed them towards it, bowing towards the father, as company conduct required.

"Is there any other service I may do you, sir?" (This is where Fran got most of her inappropriate comments, but she was so used to it now, they barely affected her anymore) Her crimson eyes swept towards the man in front of her, and she had to admit, for a hume male who had to be into his fourties, he looked quite attractive.

The man shook his head, a fatherly smile on his face. "No, Miss Fran, and I apologize for my son's familiarity. In our home of Archades, there are few viera, and most cein not to speak with humes. My son's a good boy, if a little too curious. He'll never make it as a noble..." He trailed off, his counantence one of pensive thought. As if suddenly realizing that there was someone else there, the man shook himself from thought, the careless but cunning smile that he and his son shared returning. "Again, I apologize, Miss. It appears that I am as bad as my son, troubling you with worries that are not yours."

Fran smiled. "It is no problem, Sir, and to be honest-" an odd thought struck Fran, a thought she never expected herself to be thinking. "-meeting your son was quite a pleasure. Good evening, Lord Bunansa." She bowed, not as stiffly as she normally would, and gracefully made her way to the Sky Saloon.

Lord Cidolphous Bunansa watched the viera go, curious. He was never one to believe in fate or anything else that was out of the control of Man, but that in that one woman, he felt the strongest feeling of apprehension.

"Father, look!" Ffamran's muffled voice rang from inside the room. Cid sighed, knowing that if he did not look his son would never let up.

"Coming, Son," he said, slipping into the room with one last look at the retreating viera.

- - -

"Uhh, Miss Fran?" The viera whirled, turning to face the boy she had never expected to see again. For the last year, every time she heard a hume-child speak, she kept expecting it to be the small, copper-haired boy, his brown eyes with the same razor intellect that she had last seen them filled with. Repressing an urge to sweep the child into her arms, Fran smiled down at the boy, who had grown quite a bit in the last twelve months.

"Why hello, Balthier," she said. His father was nowhere in sight, and the name Ffamran did not suit this child at all. At the sound of her using the name he gave her, he grinned, his smile considerably more...rougeish than it was before.

"I didn't expect for you to remember me," he said happily, clapping his hands in an unusually childish gesture. It didn't suit him.

"Of course I remember you, child. You are the only one who has ever doubted that I was a viera," she replied, her voice laced with heavy laughter. Embarrassed, Bathier rubbed the back of his head, ruffling hair that was slightly longer than it had been a year ago, making him seem even less polished.

"Well, sorry about that..." he laughed, walking towards the Sky Saloon. "Care to join me?" he turned, flashing that rougeish smile. "I'm quite hungry, and my father told me not to be alone for long peiods of time."

Fran felt an uncharacteristic urge to join the boy, and she knew herself too well to try and fight it. With a nod, she strode up to the boy, gesturing towards the large double doors of the Saloon. "Very well, then. This way, Balthier."

Balthier beamed, his eyes filled with admiration and- now this was odd- friendship. A gloved hand encased in a too-long sleeve, a fashion comon among the younger nobles of Archades, shot out, grabbing hers. Fran stopped, looking down at the child, who walked on as if nothing had changed.

Fran was not too fond of humes. In fact, though she had a job where she spent a vast amount of time dealing with them, she avoided contact whenever possible. And yet, she did not shy from contact with this boy. In fact, she craved it. He was one of the most fascinating people she had ever met, and she was enthralled.

Indeed, he was a strange child.

- - -

She no longer jumped whenever she heard a hume-child's voice, for she knew Balthier's voice by heart now. And she knew when she would see him again. Once a year, for two weeks, a trip across Ivalice. Lord Bunansa's gift to his son, a trip to himself once a year.

Never in her life had Fran felt such strong apprehension, such _excitement._ Life in Eruyt Village was one of peace, without the harshness that surrounded humes and their actions, but it was also devoid of variety. It seemed like the viera lived as if dead, compared to her life here with the humes.

And here, the boy came, much taller than before, his smile gleaming and filled with more mischief than before. His stride was filled with the pride of one who had earned it, not inherited it, as many Archadian nobles did. It was one of the many admirable things about Balthier, his determination.

Fran knew now of the boy's dreams. At his last visit, he bade her take him to the ship's engines, to the cockpit, to speak with the ship's mechanics. Fran knew very little of the hume flying machines, but in the last year, she had made a strong effort to learn, and she was eager to tell Balthier what he craved to know.

And as the boy approached, with his hand extended to take hers, Fran reached back, smiling at the contact. Balthier simply exuded happiness, and it was impossible to resist.

"Hey, Fran!" he said, his voice surprisingly much deeper than before. Not for the first time, Fran was surprised at the speed at which hume children grew. The growth that Balthier had achieved in two years had been the equivalent of seventy to eighty years of viera children.

"Greetings, Balthier. It is very good to see you." Balthier cocked his head, his eyes curious.

"So, what did you learn while I was gone?"

- - -

And so the tradition continued. Two weeks a year spent teaching Balthier what Fran had learned the past year. She began to speak more to the other humes as well, picking up knowledge from them that could be passed on to Balthier. More surprising, Fran learned that she herself was interested in the workings of the hume technology. She began to spend time with a frequent flyer, a moogle called Nono.

Eventually, the two became friends, and Fran introduced him to Balthier. The trio began to work together, each coming forward once a year with the knowledge they had collected in the previous months.

And Balthier continued to grow, filling out, and his voice growing deeper with each meeting. One year, he came forward with a pierced ear, and Fran laughed outright.

It was a moment that she treasured, for viera rarely ever laugh. In fact, before she had met Balthier, Fran had only laughed on five occasions. Now it seemed as if she was constantly pushing the bubbling mirth farther and farther, desperately clinging for control.

Though she barely admitted it to herself, Fran knew that this boy, this _man,_ was more precious to her than her sisters, her race- even the wood. She would die for him, and she knew that she lived for him.

He had brought her back from the dead life she had once had as a viera. He was her rebirth.

- - -

This year was different. Balthier had changed. His stride was no longer that of somewhat arrogant pride. This man had known defeat. She saw it in his eyes, in his posture; heard it in his voice.

But he tried to hide it. He still smiled, just as happily as before. Though he couldn't change the sadness in his eyes, he had tried to obscure it in his smile. A valiant effort, though in vain.

"Balthier, what's wrong?" Fran asked, her voice deep with concern. He started, somewhat delayed, with false surprise.

"Why do you ask that?" he asked, attempting to sound confused. Fran saw right through it.

"Balthier, I know that something's wrong. I can see it in your eyes. Please tell me, did something happen? Your father perhaps go too far in one of his experiments and bring shame to your family?" Balthier laughed. Not the carefree, glowing laugh she remembered, but a short, bitter bark. It caused her pain to hear him so changed.

"You know me well enough to know that family shame means nothing to me. But my father did go too far in one of his fool experiments." He collapsed onto a chair, looking up at Fran with his sad eyes. "My father went to Giruvegan."

Her crimson eyes widened. "The holy city? Why? I thought him too smart to do so daft a thing!" Balthier shook his head, the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes.

"I have no idea why, Fran, but since he's come back..." he took a shuddering breath. "The man has changed, rambling to himself. He's become obsessed, Fran." He closed his eyes, a bitter smile twisting his lips. "The man made me a Judge."

One of Fran's snowy eyebrows raised. "A Judge?"

"Yes, I know, Fran, the man has gone truly insane to do such a thing. That's why..." His eyes opened, and the smile was back, cocky and rougeish. Almost the man she once knew. "I'm kidnapping you!"

Startled, Fran did nothing as Balthier swept her off her feet and onto his shoulder. Customers cried out as the Archadian noble ran through the Sky Saloon, an intercom in hand.

"Nono?" he said as he ran, bursting through the doors and into the bridge.

_"I hear ya, boss! Front of the ship, as planned?"_

"Yeah, Nono! But fast, because I get the feeling that I may have company soon!" The sound of armor could be heard as he rushed to the viewing glass. Children and adults stared as he gazed out of the window, waiting for a ship, _his ship_, to appear.

"You could put me down," Fran huffed from his shoulder, watching in half annoyance as some Archadian guards approached, unsure of what to do.

There was a click as Balthier pulled out a large, intricate gun. He pointed it towards the glass as he smirked at Fran. "Now, but that's not very Sky Pirate-esque, now is it?" The trigger was pulled and the glass shattered, causing the passengers to scream and the Archadians rush forward.

But Balthier had swiftly pulled himself to the glass, grinning, and cried,"Thus you have seen Balthier the Sky Pirate's first act. And with that-" he glanced back, seeing that the _Strahl_ had appeared in the clouds below. "-I take my leave!"

He leapt, and the wind rushed by. Fran, free from his grasp, simply gazed at him in astonishment. Balthier, in return, grinned, and grabbed her by the waist.

"Hold on tight, my friend. This may be a rough landing."

Fran sighed, resigned to her fate, and prepared herself for what would be the most interesting fifty years of her life.


End file.
